Philippians 2: 12-13 Paul speaks of the internal working of God. This power of God within the believer Baillie presents as a model of the
3. In thinking about the incarnation, we must begin not with the traditional conceptions of humanity and deity, but with the recognition
that the two are most fully known in Jesus Christ. We sometimes ap- proach the incarnation with an antecedent assumption that it is virtually impossible. We know what humanity is and what deity is, and they are, of course, by definition incompatible. They are, respectively, the finite and the infinite. But this is to begin in the wrong place-with a concep- tion of humanity drawn from our knowledge of existential rather than
essential humanity. Our understanding of human nature has beenformed by an inductive investigation of both ourselves and other humans as we find them about us. But none of us are humanity as God intended it to be, or as it came from his hand. Humanity was spoiled and corrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve. Consequently, we are not true human beings, but impaired, broken-down vestiges of essential humanity, and it is difh- cult to imagine this kind of humanity united with deity. But when we say that in the incarnation Jesus took on humanity, we are not talking about this kind of humanity. For the humanity of Jesus was not the humanity of sinful human beings, but the humanity possessed by Adam and Eve from their creation ‘and before their fall. There is no doubt, then, as to Jesus’ humanity. The question is not whether Jesus was fully human, but whether we are (see p. 721). He was not merely as human as we are; he was more human than we are. He was, spiritually, the type of humanity that we will possess when we are glorified. His humanity was certainly more compatible with deity than is the type of humanity that we now observe. We should define humanity, not by integrating our present empirical observations, but by examining the human nature of Jesus, for he most fully reveals the true nature of humanity.
The Unity of the Person of Christ
737
Jesus Christ is also our best source for knowledge of deity. We assume that we know what God is really like. But it is in Jesus that God is most fully revealed and known. As John said, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known”
(John 1:18). Thus, our picture of what deity is like comes primarily through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
We sometimes approach the incarnation the wrong way. We define deity and humanity abstractly and then say, “They could not possibly fit together.” We assume that divine nature simply cannot be assimilated with human nature, but that assumption is based upon the Greek con- ception of the impassibility of deity rather than upon the Bible. If, how- ever, we begin with the reality of the incarnation in Jesus Christ, we not only see better what the two natures are like, but recognize that whatever they are, they are not incompatible, for they once did coexist in one person. And what is actual is of course possible.20
In connection with the possibility of unity between deity and humanity, we need to bear in mind the distinctive picture of humanity given us in the Bible. As the image of God, man is already the creature most like God. The assumption that man is so dissimilar from God that the two cannot coexist in one person is probably based upon some other model of human nature. It may result from thinking of man as basically an animal which has evolved from lower forms of life. We know from the Bible, however, that God chose to become incarnate in a creature very much like himself. It is quite possible that God’s purpose in making man in his own image was to facilitate the incarnation which would someday take place.
4. It is important to think of the initiative of the incarnation as coming from above, as it were, rather than from below. Part of our problem in understanding the incarnation may come from the fact that we view it from below, from the human perspective. From this standpoint, incar- nation seems very unlikely, perhaps even impossible. The difficulty lies in the fact that we are in effect asking ourselves how a human being could ever be God, as if it were a matter of a human being’s becoming God or somehow adding deity to his humanity. We are keenly aware of our own limits, and know how hard or even impossible it would be to go beyond them, particularly to the extent of becoming God. For God to become man (or, more correctly, to add humanity to his deity), however, is not impossible. He is unlimited and therefore is able to condescend to the lesser, whereas the lesser cannot ascend to the greater or higher. (It is possible for us as human beings to do many of the things which a cat or a dog does; for instance, to imitate its sounds or behavior. To be sure, we
20. Karl Barth, The Humunity of Goa’ (Richmond: John Knox, 1960),
pp.
46-47.7 3 8 The Person of Christ
do not actually take on feline or canine nature, and there are certain limitations, such as a less acute sense of sight or smeU; but it is still much easier for us to imitate animals than for them to imitate human behavior.) The fact that man did not ascend to divinity, nor did God elevate a man to divinity, but, rather, God condescended to take on humanity, facilitates our ability to conceive of the incarnation and also effectively excludes adoptionism. It will be helpful to keep in mind here that the heavenly Second Person of the Trinity antedated the earthly Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, there was no such being as the earthly Jesus of Nazareth prior to the moment of conception in the womb of the virgin Ivlary.
5. It is also helpful to think of Jesus as a very complex person. Of the people whom we know, some are relatively simple. This is not a reference to their level of intelligence, but rather to the straightforwardness of their personality. One comes to know them fairly quickly, and they may there- fore be quite predictable. Other persons, on the other hand, have much more complex personalities. They may have a wider range of experience, a more varied educational background, or a more complex emotional makeup. There are many facets to their personalities. When we think we know them quite well, another dimension of their lives appears, a dirnen- sion which we did not previously know existed. Now if we imagine complexity expanded to an infinite degree, then we have a bit of a glimpse into the “personality of Jesus” as it were, his two natures in one person.
For Jesus’ personality included the qualities and attributes which consti- tute deity. There were within his person dimensions of experience, knowl- edge, and love that are not found in human beings. To be sure, there is a problem here, for these qualities differ from the human not merely in degree, but in kind. This point serves to remind us that the person of Jesus was not simply an amalgam of human and divine qualities merged into some sort of tertium quid Rather, his was a personality that in addition to the characteristics of divine nature had all the qualities or attributes of perfect, sinless human nature as well.
We have noted several dimensions of biblical truth which will help us better understand the incarnation. Someone has said that there are only seven basic jokes, and every joke is merely a variation on one of them. A similar statement can be made about heresies regarding the person of Christ. There are basically six, and all of them appeared within the first four Christian centuries. They either deny the genuineness (Ebionism) or the completeness (Arianism) of Jesus’ deity, deny the genuineness (Doce- tism) or the completeness (Apollinarianism) of his humanity, divide his person (Nestorianism), or confuse his natures (Eutychianism). All depar- tures from the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ are simply variations of one of these heresies. While we may have difficulty specify- ing exactly the content of this doctrine, full fidelity to teaching of Scrip- ture will carefully avoid each of these distortions.
The Virgin Birth
The Significance of the Issue Evidence for the Virgin Birth
Biblical Evidence Early Church Tradition Objections to the Virgin Birth
Unexpected Ignorance Regarding the Virgin Birth The Possibility of Its Precluding Full Humanity Parallels in Other Religions
Incompatibility with the Preexistence of Christ Conflict with Natural Law
The Theological Meaning of the Virgin Birth
The
Signilicance of the IssueNext to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, perhaps the one event of his life that has received the greatest amount of attention is the virgin birth. Certainly, next to the resurrection, it is the most debated and controversial.
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the virgin
birth was at the forefront of debate between the fundamentalists and
7397 4 0 The Person of Christ The Virgin Birth 741
modernists. The fundamentalists insisted upon the doctrine as an essen- tial belief. The modernists either rejected it as unessential or untenable, or reinterpreted it in some nonliteral fashion. To the former it was a guarantee of the qualitative uniqueness and deity of Christ, while to the latter it seemed to shift attention from his spiritual reality to a biological issue.’
One reason why there was so much emphasis upon this teaching which is mentioned only twice in Scripture is that there were shifting conceptions of various other doctrines. One of the tendencies of the liberals was to redefine doctrines without changing the terminology. John Randall, Jr., has referred to the virtual dishonesty of such a practice.2 As a result of the practice of redefining various doctrines without changing the terminology, subscription to those doctrines was no longer positive proof of orthodoxy. Thus it was no longer possible to assume that what a theologian meant by the “divinity” or “deity” of Christ was a qualitative uniqueness distinguishing him from other humans. We mentioned in chapter 14 the case of W. Robertson Smith, who, when accused of denying the divinity of Christ, reportedly said, “How can they accuse me of that ? I’ve never denied the divinity of any man, let alone Jesus! ” In the face of such views, assent to the doctrine of Jesus’ deity did not necessar- ily entail the traditional meaning: that Jesus was divine in the same sense and to the same degree as the Father, and in a way that is not true of any other person who has ever lived. Thus, not surprisingly, the deity of Christ does not appear in some lists of the fundamentals of orthodoxy.
Instead, the bodily resurrection and the virgin birth are to be found there. The fundamentalists reasoned that if one could subscribe to the virgin birth, it probably was not necessary to inquire into his position on the other evidences of Jesus’ deity, as these are generally less difficult to accept than the virgin birth. That is why one’s position on the virgin birth became asked of candidates for ordination, for it was a relatively quick and efficient way of determining whether they held Christ to be supernatural.
There was an even larger issue here, however. For the virgin birth became a test of one’s position on the miraculous. If one could subscribe to the virgin birth, he probably could accept the other miracles reported in the Bible. Thus, this became a convenient way of determining one’s attitude toward the supernatural in general. But even beyond that, it was
1. Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Man from Nazareth as His Contemporaries Saw Him (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949), pp. 158-60.
2. John Herman Randall, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind, rev. ed. (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1940) p. 542.
a test of one’s world-view, and specifically of one’s view of God’s relation- ship to the world.
One of the major points of disagreement between the conservative and the liberal had to do with God’s relationship to the world. Generally speaking, the liberal or modernist stressed the immanence of God. God was seen as everywhere present and active. He was believed to be at work accomplishing his purposes through natural law and everyday processes rather than in direct and unique fashion.3 The conservative or fundamentalist, on the other hand, stressed the transcendence of God.
According to this view, God is outside the world, but intervenes miracu- lously from time to time to perform a special work. The fundamentalist saw the virgin birth as a sign of God’s miraculous working,4 whereas the liberal saw every birth as a miracle. The virgin birth was, then, a primary battleground between the supernaturalistic and naturalistic views of God’s relationship to the world.
The virgin birth means different things to different theologians. What we are speaking of here is really the ‘virgin conception.” By this we mean that Jesus’ conception in the womb of Mary was not the result of sexual relationship. Mary was a virgin at the time of the conception, and contin- ued so up to the point of birth, for the Scripture indicates that Joseph did not have sexual intercourse with her until after the birth of Jesus (Matt.
1:25). Mary became pregnant through a supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit upon her, but that does not mean that Jesus was the result of copulation between God and Mary. It also does not mean that there was not a normal birth. Some theologians, particularly Catholics, interpret the virgin birth as meaning that Jesus was not born in normal fashion.
In their view, he simply passed through the wall of Mary’s uterus instead of being delivered through the normal birth canal, so that Mary’s hymen was not ruptured. Thus, there was a sort of miraculous Caesarean section. According to the related Catholic doctrine of the perpetual vir- ginity of Mary, she at no point engaged in sexual intercourse, so that there were no natural sons and daughters born to Joseph and Mary5 Certain theologians, for example, Dale Moody, in order to distinguish their interpretation of the virgin birth from that of traditional Catholi-
3. Borden P. Bowne, The Immanence of Cod (Boston: Houghton Mifhin, 1905) pp.
5-32.
4. James Or-r, The Virgin Birth of Christ (New York: Scribner, 1907), pp. l-29.
5. Until recently, Roman Catholic theologians adhered to the fourth-century three- fold formula regarding Mary’s virginity: ante par-turn, in partu, et postpartum (‘before, in, and after birth”). See Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1977) pp. 5 17-I 8. The “brothers and sisters” of Jesus have been explained either as children of Joseph by an earlier marriage or as Jesus’ cousins. See J. Blizzer, Die Briider und Schwesferrl .Ic.\!~ (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1967).
7 4 2 The Person of Christ The Virgin Birth 743 cism, have proposed the use of the expression “virginal conception” or
“miraculous conception” in place of “virgin birth.“6 However, because of the common usage of the expression “virgin birth,” we will employ it here, with the understanding that our interpretation differs from the traditional Roman Catholic dogma.
There are also disagreements as to the importance of the virgin birth, even among those who insist that belief in the doctrine must be main- tained. Some have argued that the virgin birth was essential to the incarnation.’ If there had been both a human mother and a human father, Jesus would have been only a man. Others feel that the virgin birth was indispensable to the sinlessness of Christ.8 For if there had been two human parents, Jesus would have inherited a depraved or corrupted human nature in its fullness; there would have been no possibility of sinlessness. Yet others feel that the virgin birth was not essential for either of these considerations, but that it has great value in terms of symbolizing the reality of the inearnation.9 It is an evidential factor, in much the same way that the other miracles and particularly the resur- rection function to certify the supernaturalness of Christ. On this basis, the virgin birth was not necessary ontologically, that is, the virgin birth was not necessary for Jesus to be God. It is, however, necessary episte- mologically, that is, in order for us to know that he is God.
On the other hand, some have contended that the doctrine of the virgin birth is dispensable .I0 It could be omitted with no disruption of the essential meaning of Christianity. While few evangel&& take this posi- tion actively, it is interesting to note that some evangelical systematic- theology texts make little or no mention of the virgin birth in their treatment of Christology.ll In fact, much of the discussion of the virgin birth has come in separate works which deal at length with the subject.
It will be necessary for us, once we have examined the positive argu- ments or evidence for the virgin birth, to ask what the real meaning of
6. Dale Moody, The Word of Truth A Summary of Christian Doctrine Based on Biblical Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 198 l), p. 417. Raymond Brown uses the term “Virginal Conception”-The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paul&t, 1973), pp. 27-28.
7. Tertullian Adversus Marcionem 4. 10.
8. On; Virgin Birth, pp. 190-201.
9. Edward J. Carnell, “The Virgin Birth of Christ,” Christianity Today, 7 December 1959, pp. 9-10.
10. L. Harold De Wolf, A Theology of the Living Church (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), pp. 230-32.
11. E.g., Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953); Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), vol. 2.
the doctrine is, and what its importance is. Then, and only then, will we be able to draw its practical implications.
Evidence for the Virgin Birth
Biblical Evidence
The doctrine of the virgin birth is based upon just two explicit biblical references-Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38. There are other pas- sages in the New Testament which some have argued refer to or at least allude to or presuppose the virgin birth, and there is the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 which is cited by Matthew (1:23). But even when these pas- sages are taken into consideration, the number of relevant references is quite few.
We might simply stop at this point and assert that since the Bible affirms the virgin birth not once but twice, that is sufficient proof. Since we believe that the Bible is inspired and authoritative, Matthew 1 and Luke 1 convince us that the virgin birth is fact. However, we must also be mindful that inasmuch as a claim of historical truthfulness is made for the virgin birth, that is, inasmuch as it is represented as an event occurring within time and space, it is in principle capable of being confinned or falsified by the data of historical research.
In trying to determine the historic&y of the virgin birth, we note, first, the basic integrity of the two pertinent passages. Both of the explicit references, and specifically Matthew 1:20-21 and Luke 1:34, are integral parts of the narrative in which they occur; they are not insertions or interpolations. Moreover, Raymond Brown finds that between each of the infancy narratives and the rest of the book in which it appears there is a continuity in style (e.g., the vocabulary, the general formula of cita- tion) and subject matter.12
In addition, it can be argued that the two accounts of Jesus’ birth, although clearly independent of one another, are similar on so many points (including Mary’s virginity) that it must be concluded that for those points both draw independently upon a common narrative earlier than either of them; having greater antiquity, it also has a stronger claim to historic@. Brown has compiled a list of eleven points which the accounts in Matthew and Luke have in common.13 Among the significant items in which they differ Brown notes Luke’s references to the story of
12. Brown, Birth of the Messiah, pp. 48-51,239-43.
13. Ibid., pp. 34-35.